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Tens of thousands of civilians are being killed because they were born in the wrong place and simply have the “wrong” passport.

Few people would choose to live in a state of war, or in a place where they are denied freedoms other countries provide.

That is not to say that people do not want to be from the countries they live in, but they want their children to be educated and they want their families to be fed, safe and sheltered.

According to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, “an estimated over 940,000 people were killed by direct post-9/11 war violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Pakistan between 2001-2023. Of these, more than 432,000 were civilians.”

Since this report was released in 2023, there have been at least two major conflicts in Sudan and Gaza, in which tens of thousands more civilians have been killed, bringing that total to more than 500,000 — there are cities with smaller populations than that.

Who knows what the situation between Iran and Israel will bring?

Civilians overall do not appear to choose to go to war — some support it, others do not. But it is those in government, the people in charge, that make the decision to go to fight.

None of us chose to be born where we were — that is up to nature. If we are lucky, nature puts us in a country that feels like home and provides peace and security.

But around the world, there are many places where people are not so fortunate. They may love their nationality, but do so in the face of oppressive dictatorships or neighbors determined to shift the boundaries.

On more than one occasion, I have heard Westerners ask why people living under oppressive regimes appear to simply sit back and take it.

It is easy to ask such questions when you live in a house with clean running water, a door that locks and a reliable power source; where you can speak freely and generally live without fear of retribution.

These people asking for such courage are often the same people who get angry when their city’s streets are blocked by a peaceful demonstration, where protesters are not confronted with a volley of live bullets.

It would be reasonable to draw the conclusion that children who grow up in war zones, or under the rule of oppressive regimes, are more inclined to take up arms later in life — indeed there is evidence that shows this to be the case.

But in 2016, I went to Lebanon to see the work being done to help educate Syrian schoolchildren who had fled their country with their parents after the civil war began. I spoke to several children about what they thought their futures held for them and not one of them said they wanted to take up arms and fight. There was no talk of revenge.

They aspired to be doctors, teachers, engineers — the list was endless. Several of the children said they wanted to be able to return to Syria and help rebuild their country.

I have not met many people who want to go to war.

If we are lucky, nature puts us in a country that feels like home and provides peace and security.

Peter Harrison

There was a time when dying for your country was seen as honorable. Most now accept that they can help more when alive, rather than dead.

In 2007, I was at the Kajaki hydroelectric plant in Afghanistan working for a regional newspaper from southwest Britain. A worker asked why I was there. I told him I was there as a newspaper journalist working as the defense reporter.

He said that one after another, people from the West (generally), be they politicians or media, would arrive, take photos, ask him the same questions about how he felt about the Taliban and the International Security Assistance Force, and then leave. “But nothing ever changes,” he said.

Of course, he was right to say this. Did I seriously believe it would make any difference for me to report on what I saw was happening in his country? Of course not.

Like every other, I would write my story, leave and work on the next one.

In Afghanistan, there were many “hearts and minds” projects aimed at creating a community. Market stall areas were created and police stations were painted pink to make them “more inviting” — usually ideas cultivated by foreign nongovernmental organizations.

Hundreds of thousands of people died in the Afghanistan war — military and civilians — and this man’s country was eventually handed back to the Taliban, who brought back their highly restrictive form of rule.

I have no clue what happened to him. My hope is that, rather than being seen as someone who might have collaborated with Western forces, he was seen as an essential worker at the power plant, providing electricity to all.

History is littered with wars largely started as the result of one ideology or another, often under the claim of fighting terror or another force of evil — but most trace back to an ideology that favors the few.

We live in a time where narcissism and gaslighting have never seemed more apparent, whether at home, in the workplace or among world leaders.

It is not a new phenomenon, but social media and the acceptance of its unsolicited, often unverified, content has become an enabler of these people’s toxicity.

And while, on a personal level, this can seem miserable and debilitating at first, it is something most people eventually shake off. At a global level, it can prove to be deadly.

The millions in Tehran being told to evacuate their homes do not want their neighborhoods to be flattened or their friends and family to be killed — no one wants that.

When, in Gaza in 2023, Khaled Nabhan held the lifeless body of his three-year-old granddaughter Reem, he did not speak of revenge or anger, just anguish, the loss of his grandchildren in an Israeli attack and, more importantly, of love.

• Peter Harrison is a senior editor at Arab News in the Dubai office. He has covered the Middle East for more than a decade. X: @PhotoPJHarrison